Kremlin announces new personnel decisions in connection with election of officials to Russian Academy of Sciences

MOSCOW. Nov 28 (Interfax) – More personnel decisions will be made in connection with the election of officials as corresponding members and academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian presidential press officer Dmitry Peskov said.

“Some more personnel decisions are sure to be made,” Peskov told reporters, responding to a question as to why not all officials who were elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences have lost their posts.

Speaking about the future of Deputy Education Minister Alexei Lopatin, Peskov said: “If I’m not mistaken, it is decided by the prime minister’s order.”

According to earlier reports, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree dismissing from their posts Alexander Savenkov, deputy interior minister of the Russian Federation and head of the Investigations Department of the Russian Interior Ministry, Vasily Khristoforov, head of the Department of Registration and Archives of the Federal Security Service, Konstantin Kotenko, deputy presidential property manager and head of the Main Medical Directorate of the presidential property management office, and Alexander Fisun, the head of the Main Military-Medical Department of the Russian Defense Ministry.

The Russian president said last week that public servants and officials who had become academicians despite the ban would be offered an opportunity to pursue science.

“I will have to give them the chance to pursue science. Because it looks like their scientific activities are more important to them than performing some routine obligations in the government and administrative bodies,” Putin said at a meeting of the presidential science and education council on Wednesday.

The president did not then name any specific names. In the meantime, the names of some officials are on the lists of academicians.